Together In Gospel Joy

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 84

Psalm 84 ESV

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Selah Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion. O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed! For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!

Scripture Reading: Psalm 103:1-5

Psalm 103:1–5 ESV

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Sermon:

Good Morning Church! I was glad when they said to me let us go and worship in the house of the Lord!

FCF/Intro:

We are SAINTS and

-Paul reminds all the believers that they are already “saints,” “holy ones,” because of their relationship to God in Christ Jesus. - Hansen, 330.

BROTHERS

-Paul never lives in isolation. Even as a prisoner in chains, he lives in a community. - Hansen, 330.

-On the surface, the world Paul lived in seems very different from ours. But really the similarities outnumber the changes. The racial, national, social and religious divisions with which we are familiar are nothing new. It was exactly the same in Paul’s world, where Greek despised barbarian, Jew scorned Gentile, and the benefits of Roman civilization were conferred along with the crosses on which national freedom fighters choked their lives to an end. - Motyer, 223.

-This is the people we belong to as Christians; yet we know so little of the reality, excitement or practical implications of it. We have allowed the church to lose its distinctiveness as the new humanity; we have identified it with nationalistic causes; we think nothing of it when Christians take up weapons of war, prepared in principle to kill their brothers and sisters in Christ; we have lost our love in denominations which blandly unchurch those who own the same Saviour and owe their eternal security to the same precious blood. There is a shame and a pity here that go beyond words to express. Is it any wonder that, as we look around at the poor, fragmented, inadequate thing that passes for the church of Christ, we find it powerless against worldly assault and doctrinal error? We have lost the unity without which a resolute stand is impossible. To be sure, Paul did not have in mind as he wrote the mountainous problems of our denominational divisions, but how he would have wept if he had foreseen them! Where is the people of God, the saints of the Most High? And what is the solution to our monumental disunity? - Motyer, 224.

because of GRACE

-God’s grace and favour, which reconciled souls enjoy, with the whole of the graces in us, which flow from it, are all purchased for us by Christ’s merit, and applied by his pleading for us; and therefore are justly called the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. - Matthew Henry

-The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ crowns the entire letter, and forms the apostle’s prayer for his ‘joy and crown’, his ‘beloved’ fellowship of the saints of God at Philippi (4:1). He desires that the grace of the one who is the theme of his own life (1:21) and the subject-matter of his epistle may be with your spirit - Martin, 190–191.

-The sole focus on the Lord Jesus Christ in the final benediction implies that Christ has the authority to convey the grace of God to the church - Hansen, 332.

-There is, then, no more fitting conclusion to Philippians that the simplicity of the final prayer. For us, as for himself, Paul wanted nothing but a daily and deepening experience of Jesus, satisfying and unsearchable: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. - Motyer, 229.